US ups support of opposition ahead of Burma polls

US President Barack Obama's administration renewed support Friday for the political opposition in Burma which faced a clampdown from the military junta ahead of rare national elections.

This 2009 photo shows Burma democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi at a hotel in Rangoon. The US Senate voiced solidarity with the National League for Democracy (NLD), the main opposition party which was abolished by the junta, but called on the Obama administration to consider tighter sanctions

The US Senate also voiced solidarity with the National League for Democracy (NLD), the main opposition party which was abolished by the junta, but called on the Obama administration to consider tighter sanctions.

Amid doubts over its policy of diplomatically engaging the junta, the administration sought to increase support for the NLD, its leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other opponents while slamming junta actions over the elections.

State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said it was "highly regrettable" that the junta created the circumstances in which NLD members felt they had to form a new party after the league was disbanded.

"We applaud the resolve of the NLD to continue working for the people of Burma," Crowley told reporters, using Burma's former name.

The NLD refused to meet a May 6 deadline to re-register -- a move that would have forced it to expel its own leader -- and boycotted the vote, which critics say is a sham designed to legitimize the junta's half-century grip on power.

Khin Maung Swe, a former member of the NLD's decision-making central executive committee, said some members aimed to register the new party this month but had not yet decided whether to take part in this year's polls.

Analysts say that within Aung San Suu Kyi's party there has been friction between older, hardline members and younger more moderate figures who opposed the boycott decision.

A senior US official said meanwhile that Kurt Campbell, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's top diplomat for Asia, will visit Burma if the junta allows him to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi and other opposition members.

"Unless the Burmese (Burma) government agrees to our conditions he will not go," the State Department official told reporters on the condition of anonymity.

Campbell, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, met with Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon last November when he became the highest-ranking American official to visit Burma in 14 years.

The Obama administration last year launched a new policy of dialogue with the junta, concluding that years of Western efforts to isolate the regime had not borne fruit.

The administration has maintained sanctions on Burma but dangled the possibility of easing the measures in return for progress on democracy and human rights.

The Senate on Friday approved a resolution urging the junta to engage in dialogue with the NLD and to free Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace laureate who has spent much of the past two decades under house arrest.

It asked the administration to maintain and consider strengthening sanctions "if the military regime continues its systematic violation of human rights and fails to embrace the democratic aspirations of the people of Burma."

The NLD swept the country's last elections in 1990 but was never allowed to take over.

Aung Din, executive director of the US Campaign for Burma, welcomed the Senate moves.

"I applaud US Senate for demanding the US administration to strengthen existing pressure against Burma's military regime and to review its engagement policy with the regime," said Aung Din.

"I am hoping that the Obama administration will support the establishment of a UN commission of enquiry to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma and call the regime's election a sham."

Source :http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/177239/us-ups-support-of-opposition-ahead-of-burma-polls